The Beit Midrash in the Age of Snapchat
Shira Hecht-Koller
Earlier this year, Apple released the iPhone X. When the first iPhone was released in 2007, I was completing my second year of...
Practicing Neo-Hasidism: Insights from Arthur Green’s Writings
Jonah Mac Gelfand explores the neo-Hasidic theology of obligation to do mitzvot that emerges from the fascinating writings of Rabbi Arthur Green.
Saving Non-Jews on Shabbat: Two Perspectives on the Development of a Sensitive Halakhah
Jonathan Ziring explores the innovative nature of different Halakhic rulings permitting violating Shabbat to save non-Jewish lives.
Gilgamesh and the Rabbis: Knowledge and its Price from Uruk to the Beit Midrash
What do Adam, Enkidu, and Reish Lakish all have in common? Eli Putterman explores.
Subjective Experience in Halakhah: Music During Sefirah as a Case Study
Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.
Rav Hayyim and the Love of Lernen
In 1927, Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz wrote a poem, an ode to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk. Nati Helfgot provides the background and a translation.
How to Feel “Sight Damage”: A Case Study on Sensory Imagination and Halakhic Understanding
Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli offers a careful examination of an enigmatic discussion in the Shulhan Arukh’s laws on neighborly relations. She demonstrates how “radical presence” and attention to sensory details is an essential strategy for halakhic decision-making.
There Are No Lights in War: We Need a Different Religious Language
A growing list of dati le’umi leaders and thinkers frame war as a desirable state and even an opportunity for spiritual elevation. Religious Israeli activist Ariel Shwartz traces this trend with alarm and argues that it contradicts deep-rooted Torah values. Translated by Mordechai Blau.
Beyond the Walls of the Synagogue: Prayer as a Virtue
With lyrical prose, Natan Oliff teaches us how to view prayer as a virtue and let it enter every aspect of our lives, making us into prayerful people.
First Fruits (Bikkurim) and the Talmudic View of Capital: An Essai in the Philosophy...
Bezalel Naor explains what is philosophical about the erstwhile halakhic observances of the Shavuot holiday.